


Sandedge

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Series: Ancestral Nights [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternia, Alternia-Focused, Ancestor-Era, Backstory, Books, Child Abandonment, Desert, Dystopia, First Meetings, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Ladystuck 2014 Treat, Reading, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 01:23:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3190574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unfortunately, when you turn around, you realize the cave was already occupied.  Fortunately, the occupant can be reasoned with.  (The Dolorosa meets the Disciple.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sandedge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ratherrumpus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherrumpus/gifts).



> Happy Ladystuck, [ratherrumpus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherrumpus)!

You meet the girl while retreating from a pack of zombies. Normally you would simply rip them apart, but Kankri is dehydrated and sunsick after weeks in the desert. You came here in search of the old Sandedge Abbey, whose monks and nuns retain records dating back to the nights before the Unification, and whose own heterodox beliefs and practices might incline them to shelter a forsworn guardian of the caverns.

Whatever they retained and believed is moot. The abbey is gone, razed to make way for a spaceport -- its structures still growing higher and broader every night -- and you cannot afford to be spotted by construction drones or their highblood overseers.

You cradle your wiggler in one arm and slice the leg from a zombie that carelessly strayed within your reach.

Somewhere there must be shelter. If you could simply find a defensible position, where you can keep Kankri at your back without fearing an ambush from the rear...

Finally, _finally_ , you spot a cave.

You angle your retreat toward its dark promise. You set your precious wiggler within its cool, inviting shade. You brandish your chainsaw.

The zombies are shreds within minutes.

Unfortunately, when you turn around, you realize the cave was already occupied.

A wiggler, skinny and feral and dressed in olive rags, holds a set of steel knuckle-claws to Kankri's throat. "My cave!" she snarls. "My cave, my books, you catnot have them!"

You blink.

Books?

As your eyes adjust to the shadows rather than the glaring desert sunrise, you realize that the uneven stone floor is piled high with massive, hardcover tomes. Judging by the smell, some of the ones further in have started to mildew: an impressive achievement in the desert.

After another moment, you recognize a handful of the titles. Priceless. Precious. The last known copies of their kind.

You take a step forward, involuntarily.

"You catnot have them!" the feral wiggler repeats, moving her weapon a hairsbreadth closer to Kankri's skin. "They're mine, the Big Lady said so when the bad man purrdured her. I snuck them out like she told me and you catnot take them!"

She is an Abbey orphan, then.

Sometimes it happens that a wiggler loses their lusus. Mostly, this is a death sentence, whether fast from starvation or slow from slavery. (Wigglers are no good for hard labor, but slave markets cater to many different tastes. You have stood silently through too many auctions to ever scrub yourself clean, though you know protesting would have earned nothing but death or bondage for you and Kankri.) But there are still a few places in the world where trolls put compassion into practice. Sandedge Abbey is -- _was_ \-- one such place.

"Peace," you say, and return your chainsaw to your strife specibus. "It was good of you to save the books. I'm sure the Big Lady -- is that the Abbess?"

"Yes," says the girl.

"I'm sure she would be proud of you for keeping them safe," you say. "What _I_ am keeping safe is that wiggler you captured. I look after him the way the people of Sandedge Abbey tried to look after you. I would be very sad if he were hurt."

The girl gnaws on her lip with tiny, adorable fangs. "Um. He's sunsick, isn't he? I got sun-poisoned once, a long time ago. A whole sweep! It purrt, but the Big Lady made it better."

"Yes, he's sunsick. That's why we came into your cave," you say. "May we spend the day here, where the sun cat-- cannot reach?" (Her puns are contagious. You really should not find that as cute as you do.)

"Um," the wiggler says again, then jerks her knuckle-claws back as Kankri moans and shifts in his feverish sleep. She stares at him, then back at you, and reaches a decision. "You can stay. But don't touch the books!"

"Thank you," you tell her as you sit beside Kankri and begin to remove his dusty daycloak. She scuttles back, further into the dark recesses of the cave, and peers at you over a low rampart of books.

You pull a canteen from your sylladex and begin coaxing Kankri to drink. After a few swallows, he shifts and curls up against your side, trusting you the way no one should trust any other troll but their moirail. You still don't know whether you feel more humbled or uneasy at the strange relationship you began when you took the role of lusus in his life.

You don't dare sleep -- not with zombies about, and drones, and a feral wiggler less than two body-lengths away. But you let yourself drift, spinning plans for new destinations and new explanations for why a grown troll is traveling with an unchained wiggler. (You _will not_ feign slavery, no matter how much simpler it would make your life. Kankri will grow up free.)

After a time, you notice that the girl has tugged one of the books into the open part of the cave. Keeping a wary eye on your all the while, she traces her finger along the illuminated pages and mumbles gibberish and nonsense to herself. Now and again it resolves into a sort of droned, "And then I snuck up and clawed him, and then he said rawr, and then I ran, and then I hid, and then the Big Lady came and said go away, and then he hit her, and then she fell, and--"

Two things occur to you simultaneously.

First, the girl is telling herself the story of the Abbey's destruction. She probably does this repeatedly, carving it deep into her mind, where memories and daymares intermix.

Second, she cannot read.

The plan comes to you all of a piece. One night, your impulses are going to get you killed. But some injustices cannot be left unchallenged, and you're quite certain you are the only chance this girl is going to get.

"Excuse me," you say, and when she looks up, you ask, "What is your name?"

The wiggler shrugs. "Don't have one. I nefur had a lusus. But the Big Lady called me Meulin beclaws I like cats."

"Do you mind if I also call you Meulin?" you ask.

She looks suspicious but says, "That's pawl right. I'll call you the Green Lady."

To match the Big Lady, you suppose. There are worse names. You've been called by many of them since you fled the brooding caverns.

But enough tangents. You pull your legs inward, reducing the space you occupy and hopefully making yourself appear less threatening. "Meulin, do you know what a sylladex is?"

"Yes! To keep efurrything in no space at pawl!" she says. "The Big Lady wanted to give me one, but the bad purrple came befur she could."

"When Kankri and I leave the desert," you say carefully, "we're going to a city where I could buy you a sylladex. If you come with us."

Meulin looks torn. "But my books..."

"I have a sylladex," you say, even more carefully. "So does Kankri. We could carry your books for you, until you can carry them yourself."

Meulin hisses and raises her hands, knuckle-claws flashing into place from her strife specibus.

"We could also," you say, most carefully of all, "teach you to read them."

Silence.

You wait. Beside you, Kankri's breath whistles harsh and hot from his lungs. He shifts restlessly in dry fever dreams.

Eventually, Meulin licks her lips and speaks. "The Big Lady was purrlanning to teach me. She _was_."

"She was," you agree. "But she can't, not now, so I will teach you in her memory. And when you've learned, you can write her story so no one will forget her, or forget what happened to Sandedge."

Meulin lowers her claws.

When night falls and you leave the cave, your sylladex is filled with a thousand books and a little, skinny, chattering girl has her shoulder under Kankri's arm, supporting him across the barren sands toward the future.


End file.
